Returning from a couple of fraught hours in the city this week, I felt the urge to share a few things. Unable to type this up immediately, I scrawled notes in my playbook and took photos on my phone. I have an urgent instinct to capture magic in the moment as I see it or feel it, simple as it may be. I am not sure why.
This week, I was drawn to the image above on the tiles at Highbury & Islington station. And once this image had woken my from my trance of busyness, I spotted so many more things that inspired me… a little wooden cupboard in the tiles on the opposite platform, so simply and beautifully made and seemingly out of place. I noticed patterns and repetitions and textures that made me want to grab paper and wax crayon and take rubbings. I have a desire to hold onto the special things I experience so that I may return to the good feelings at at whim. And in writing this now, questions come up…
What was it about this image above that I found so appealing (it was unexpected)?
Do I find the magic when I am on another mission or only when I am wandering?
And answers arise too…
The magic seems to happen when I have/allow time for the magic to happen… when I afford myself the luxury of wandering aimlessly, stopping and looking and a little bit of dreaming.
Inspiration is everywhere when you are open and allow yourself to really see what is around you and in front of you.
Magic really is there all of the time, but we don’t always have the time or the open mind to meet it and greet it as it needs to be greeted and met. Take yesterday, for example… I had my weekly 3 hour commute to Chichester ahead of me and I had a choice… head down working or reading or be open to dream time. I chose the latter. I took photographs such as this one… a little reminder of what I love about the journey.
It was only in looking back at the image that I noticed the double decker buses, the limited colour palette and the repetition. I wrote a little, but mostly, I just opened up to possibility and ideas. And as so often happens when I do this, I was rewarded. This time, I was rewarded with the company of Frank, a delightful gentleman whose gorgeous 90-year old spirit and approach to life attracted me before we had even spoken. We talked of music and poetry, of horse riding and languages. We even conducted some of our conversation in French and later he quoted Dante, perfectly, with real emotion. It was one of those brief and magical encounters that life gifts you sometimes and for which you feel richer.
Everyday magic is everywhere, but we don’t always see it. So often our eyes are down, our minds elsewhere. How would it feel to spend a day just exploring, just wandering aimlessly, allowing space and time for magic and inspiration? This is my intention. In coming weeks, I will experiment and report back to you. Today, I took a ten minute detour from my usual weekly path in Hornsey and discovered a tower… and its grounds are a real haven. I will return just to sit quietly.
Who knows what is ahead, what is round the next corner or where it will lead. I am open to all of it. Will you join me in this little experiment and let me know what comes up for you next time you wander and dream?
Once in a while, I see something that I just can’t keep to myself. Somewhere (and I cannot even remember the thread) on the Internet today, I stumbled across a video of an artist who, for 25 years, has been registered blind. In the words of Sargy Mann, “My desire has always been to make paintings; to make visual metaphors for my version of reality.”